The former Presid ent Kufuor in a group photograph with members of the Assemly
Former President John Agyekum
Kufuor has called for the establishment of a remuneration scheme for assembly
members.
He said that could ‘incentivise’
members to perform their oversight functions of demanding better accountability
and taking right decisions at the local level of the governance structure.
Mr. Kufuor made the remarks when he
received a delegation of assembly members from the three sub-metros of the
Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA).
The existence of such a scheme, he
said, had been long overdue especially for a developing country that has a
price to pay for its fledgling democracy by protecting the integrity of its
political officers who get tempted to be corrupt in order to meet the high
financial and social demands of the electorate.
“We talk of corruption and we
are not keen enough to see how it started. Unfortunately, members of the
assembly are victims,” he said.
He, however, cautioned that
the timing for clamouring for incentives should coincide with an improved
state of the economy.
In the absence of a remuneration
scheme, he urged members to desist from seeking favours that would
compromise their integrity, thereby failing to probe and hold executive
directors accountable for their activities within the assembly.
He supported the call to elect DCEs
on partisan basis so as to put the election activities in a defined context.
He said political parties were a ‘necessary
evil’ as complexities of modern societies would require
parties to help people to organise their thoughts, understand challenges facing
them and decide on how they should vote.
By Issah Mohammed
